140 West Copper Street

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about my friend Cyndi Ortega’s Carne de Puerco con Chile Verde.

When I was in LA last month at Sunrise, I spent a night at Cyndi’s and had the most awesome dinner you can imagine. She made this amazing green chili, and I watched and ate and could have eaten it until I couldn’t move. However, I was too polite to eat so much I made myself sick, but came home with such a taste for the stuff.

I made a batch soon after coming home, to rave reviews, although I forgot the cumin and the garlic. But here is what I thought I saw, with Cyndi’s kind reminders on garlic and cumin.

Get a pork roast. Make 2” cubes and brown them and set aside.

Get about a dozen or so fresh, cleaned tomatillos. Bright green under the paper, I like the bigger ones because they are less time consuming. Dig out under the stems and quarter and throw in a pot with some softened white onions, minced garlic, cumin and water.

Watch out for nasty little boy tomatillos.

 I buy bags of hot green chiles at the market when they are marked down as week old. I boil them, blend them down and freeze them in ice cube trays, them put them in a zip lock bag in the freezer. I use three frozen cubes or a third of a cup of fresh chile sauce.

Cook the tomatillos until very tender, then either put them in a blender or use a stick blender like the Braun unit I use. I love the Braun, because I use it right in the pot on the stove.

Make it a creamy salsa.

Toss in your cubes of browned pork and simmer until very tender.

Serve over boiled potatoes and rice.

Let the green chili keep simmering very gently, if you have it leftover with lots of pork, use a potato masher to make a great filling for green burritos.

I always make more potatoes than I need ( well, the three times in the last two weeks for the first three times I made the recipe……..) They are great in small amount potato salad or diced and cooked with onion for breakfast.

I guess that as much as I love to cook, I love to short cut some things….. I make huge pots of rice in the rice cooker, ‘cause it nukes so well, and extra potatoes just make the week more flavorful and well, easier.

Just make the stuff and enjoy it.